Wyoming v. U.S. Department of the Interior

After BLM finalized a rule to replace the Obama administration’s Waste Prevention Rule for oil and gas development on public lands, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed as moot an appeal of a district court order enjoining enforcement of the Obama-era rule. The Tenth Circuit also vacated the district court’s order. The Tenth Circuit did not, however, order the district court to dismiss the challenge to the Waste Prevention Rule. The court noted that although adoption of a new rule typically moots a challenge to the rule it replaces, in this case the replacement rule removed “almost all” of the Waste Prevention Rule’s requirements, leaving some requirements in place. For this reason, the Tenth Circuit concluded that “[w]e do not see any harm in allowing the district court to decide in the first instance whether the entire case is moot.”

On October 26, the Tenth Circuit referred the motion to dismiss to the panel assigned to consider the merits of the appeal.

The environmental groups and states appealing the stay order agreed that the case was moot but argued that the Tenth Circuit should vacate the stay order to prevent the district court’s “unprecedented” expansion of judicial authority to enjoin federal regulations “from spawning any legal consequences.” The appellants also contended that the Tenth Circuit should direct the district court to dismiss the underlying petitions for review challenging the Obama administration rule.

On October 11, 2018, the federal government moved to dismiss appeals of a Wyoming federal court’s stay of the effectiveness the Obama administration’s Waste Prevention Rule, which regulated oil and gas development on federal and tribal lands to reduce venting, flaring, and leaks of methane. The government argued that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s publication on September 28, 2018 of a final rule rescinding and revising requirements of the Waste Prevention Rule rendered the appeal moot.

On July 30, 2018, the appellants submitted their opening brief, arguing that the district court “committed an unprecedented legal error” by enjoining the rule without concluding that the rule’s challengers had satisfied the prerequisites for such relief. They also said the district court erred by invoking its authority to stay the rule “pending review” under Section 705 of the Administrative Procedure Act but then staying the litigation, which “effectively ended that review.” In addition, the appellants said the district court had acted improperly by first concluding that prudential ripeness and mootness concerns weighed against exercising Article III jurisdiction to review the rule’s merits, and then exercising such jurisdiction to stay the rule.

In June 2018, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California, New Mexico, and environmental groups could appeal a Wyoming federal court’s order staying the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Waste Prevention Rule. The Tenth Circuit agreed with the appellants that the stay order “has the practical effect of granting an injunction,” “results in a serious, perhaps irreparable, consequence in that the environmental benefits of the Rule will not be realized,” and could be challenged only by immediate appeal. The Tenth Circuit denied, however, the appellants’ motion for a stay of the district court’s stay order.

Wyoming and Montana moved in the Tenth Circuit to dismiss the appeals of a Wyoming district court order staying the effectiveness of the Bureau of Land Management's Waste Prevention Rule. Wyoming and Montana argued that the district court’s order was not reviewable.